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DR. GOULD'S ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



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1856. 



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AN ORATION 



BEFORE THE 



CONNECTICUT BETA 



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TRINITY COLLEGE, HARTFORD. 



185 6, JULY 15. ** i 



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BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD Jr. 
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PRESS OF CASE, TIFFANY AND COMPANY. 

M.DCCC.LVI. 



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ORATION. 



Mr. President and Brethren of the Phi Beta Kappa Society : 

This honorable and honored fraternity, dating from the first year 
of our national existence, aims at uniting the scholars of the nation 
in one familiar band. It assembles annually in its numerous 
branches through a widely extended region of the American 
Union, and communes concerning the intellectual progress and 
welfare of the republic. The solemn injunctions and pledges to 
secrecy, which were supposed to strengthen the intimacy of the 
connection, have now in many of the chapters been disused ; but 
the beautiful organization remains, and who may question its benig- 
nant influence. The ambition to be admitted to the brotherhood, 
the yearly gatherings of its members, the kindly communion of the 
several branches exert their beneficial power to nerve the young 
to renewed effort, they keep alive and strengthen in maturer years 
that affection for letters and intellectual pursuits which softens the 
manners and smoothes the asperities of active life, gladdening and 
comforting the professional man and the man of business, and they 
remove something at least from the barrier of physical distance. 

The Phi Beta Kappa Society Avas established at William and 
Mary College in Vh'ginia, on the 5th of December, 1776, five 
months after our declaration of independence. Within four years 
seven other branches had been chartered, and powers conferred 
upon some of these for chartering yet others in their several 
states. The first established chapters out of Virginia were the 
Alphas, as they are now called, of Massachusetts and Connec- 
ticut, charters for these branches having been issued to Mr. Elisha 
Parmele, on the 4th and 5 th December respectively, in the year 
1779. But little more than a year later, the original records of 



the parent society closed, — the college being then suspended on 
account of the proximity of the British forces. The following is 
the last entry in the record book : — 

" 1781, on Saturday the 6th of January, a meeting of the Phi 
Beta Kappa was called for the purpose of securing the papers of 
the society during the confusion of the times, and the dissolution 
which threatens the University. The members who were present 
were William Short, Daniel C. Brent, Spencer Roane, Peyton Short, 
and Landon Cabell. They thinking it most advisable that the 
papers should not be removed, determined to deliver them sealed 
into the hands of the college steward, to remain with him until the 
desirable event of the society's resurrection. And this deposit they 
make in the sure and certain hope that the fraternity will one day 
rise to life everlasting and glory immortal." 

The hope was fulfilled. On the 25th June, 1851, the society 
was re-organized by Professors Smead and Totten,whom the vener- 
able William Short, one of the original founders, and President at 
the time of dispersion, had in 1849, shortly before his death and 
more than sixty-eight years after the suspension of the society at 
Williamsburg, empowered in due form to revive and re-establish 
this the parent branch. During this last year the ancient seal has 
been restored by the Hon. Mr. Stuart, lately secretary of the 
interior, to whose guardianship it had been transmitted. 

Not merely a long-established usage, but intrinsic propriety has 
rendered one topic in some one of its manifold forms, almost im- 
perative for the occasion, namely, the duties and responsibilities of 
the American scholar. The orator is summoned as a member of 
a scholastic fraternity to address an assemblage of scholars. And 
whatever may be the variations, whatever the changes rung upon 
this theme, this is and ought to be the leading strain. Though 
trite, it is ever new and ever worthy of attention, and the succes- 
sion of the instruments, repeating the same inspiring and ennobling 
notes serves to enrich and amplify, but not to overload the fugue. 
Nor is once a year too often for the topic to be formally recalled 
to our minds and earnestly commended to our hearts. 

The flattering invitation to address you here to day found me 
among the bahny breezes of Louisiana. Written amid the icy 
blasts of New England, it sped to its destination amid the cypress 
and myrtle, yet still in our own beloved land, — as much our own 



5 

where Canopus sparkles in the winter night, as where the Great 
Bear trails along the sluggish zenith. Although accepted with 
hesitation, it has been most gladly complied with. It is indeed dan- 
gerous to venture on an untried sea, and all the more for those who 
know that their appointed path is in another course. Yet the 
temptation was great ; for it was not merely to stand upon this soil, 
hallowed in the history of American freedom as in that of Amer- 
ican letters, but to raise my humble voice in behalf of a cause 
which appeals to the scholars of our land to rally in its support, 
and insure its triumph. 

" Urania speaks with darkened brow, 

Thou pratest here where thou art least, 
Thy faith has many a purer priest 
And many an abler voice than thou." 

But soon follows the response : — 

" IVoni art, from nature, from the schools 
Let random influences glance, 
Like light in many a shattered lance 
That breaks about the dappled pools. 

The lightest wave of thought shall lisp, 

The fancy's tenderest eddy wreathe, 

The slightest air of song shall breathe, 
To make the sullen surface crisp. 

There is a beautiful coincidence by which those places conse- 
crated in the annals of our liberties are also classic in the annals of 
our letters ; a coincidence which if fortuitous is more than wonder- 
ful. Beneath an overshadowing elm of that leafy city, which it 
has been my joy to hail by the name of home, the father of his 
country, — he whose name shall survive though all other modern 
names shoidd perish, — first drew his blade, as commander of the 
armies of United America, and thence he led them on, in the 
name of the great Jehovah, to the achievement of a nation's inde- 
pendence. Here amid the embowering branches of your twin 
capital of letters and of state, we may yet see the famous oak, which 
sheltered and preserved the chartered liberties of a commonwealth. 
The classic walls of Princeton have echoed to the roars of hostile 
cannon, and reverberated the cheering shouts of "Washington as he 
rallied his exhausted but undaunted band. The mild teachings of 



6 

the much-loved sage have for more than half* a century filled the 
halls of Schenectady with youth thronging to gather the words of 
wisdom amid scenes once ravaged by fire and sword, and where of 
old were heard the guns from Stillwater and Saratoga. So too 
with Philadelphia and Williamsburg ; so too with West Point and 
Annapolis. 

Mi*. President and Brethren of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, it 
has been urged that these days in which we are now met together 
are not times for studious abstraction, for scientific research, for 
literary retirement, — that there are higher claims on us than those 
of scholarship, — that even though the pen should not utterly yield 
to the sword and the toga to the gleam of arms, at least there are 
other themes for the attention and zeal of the patriot and citizen. 
No more, we are told, should Peace " pipe on her pastoral hil- 
lock a languid note," but all the powers and all the enthusiasm of 
those who love their country and their race should be applied to 
the redress of wrongs and the enforcement of rights. 

That there is some reason in this I will not deny ; but it might 
be asked in return whether it is certain that a bandage might not 
cure as thoroughly as the amputating-knife, and oil and wine be 
preferable to the cautery. I believe, Brethren, that there are other 
places for serving one's country than the tented field, other deeds 
as valiant as the storming of a breach, or the scaling of a wall, 
other sacrifices as noble as that of blood ; that a consecrated fife is 
not one whit inferior in glory to a brave death. And I believe 
that it is good for us to be here. 

" Act well your part, there all the honor lies." It is as Ameri- 
can scholars that I address you, as men who are yearning for a 
national independence more to be implored than political independ- 
ence alone, — for an intellectual and moral freedom, in comparison 
with which mere physical freedom is dust in the balance ; as men 
who would fain unite in resistance to the bondage of ignorance and 
prejudice and bigotry and barbarism ; who would gladly witness 
the inauguration of an epoch when thoughts shall be more than 
clubs, ideas more than bowie-knives and revolvers ; when if there 
be an aristocracy, it shall be certified, not by parish registers or 
bank accounts, but by intellectual attainments, moral purity and 
noble deeds ; when the applause of good and thoughtful men shall 
outweigh that of an untutored rabble, and the ambition of our 



youth be directed rather to excellence than to position ; when the 
olive chaplet shall be more coveted than the jeweled crown of 
royalty, the laurel of the blood-stained victor or the fasces of offi- 
cial station. Being such men, it is as such that I address you. 

If we would labor for elevating the intellectual tone and aspira- 
tions, and faculties and achievements of our fellow-citizens, what 
time more fit than this ? When are such efforts more called for, 
than when violence threatens to usurp a barbaric sway, when the 
cherished and fundamental principles of republican institutions 
are set at defiance, and the very capitol resounds with the clash of 
weapons ? Let me recall to your memories two cheering passages 
of history. 

Among the noblest struggles recorded in the annals of liberty, 
the revolt of the Netherlands stands pre-eminent. Never was 
blood more freely offered in ransom for human rights, never was 
suffering more unflinchingly endured in behalf of liberty, never 
was self more manfully offered up upon the shrine of patriotism. 
And the most memorable of all the memorable events of that por- 
tentous strife was the siege of Leyden. For nearly an entire year, 
the endurance of the devoted inhabitants was almost superhuman. 
As their American historian expresses it, " they had gradually 
abandoned their hopes of relief, but they spurned the summons to 
surrender. Leyden was sublime in its despair." " From the 
ramparts they hurled renewed defiance at the enemy. " Ye call 
us rat-eaters and dog-eaters ' they cried, ' and it is true. So long 
then as ye hear dog bark or cat mew within the walls, ye may 
know that the city holds out. Should God in his wrath doom us 
to destruction, even then will we maintain ourselves forever against 
you. When the last hour has come, with our own hands will we 
set fire to the city, and perish, men, women and children together 
in the flames, rather than suffer our homes to be polluted, and our 
liberties to be crushed.'" An over-ruling Providence always pro- 
tects those who will protect themselves, and despite the taunts of 
the Spaniards, the ocean did come over the dry land to their relief ; 
its furious torrents swept the ruined dykes away, bearing the fleets 
of Boisot in triumphant state to the relief of the brave defenders 
of Leyden, already fearfully thinned by famine, pestilence and 
sword. 

" The Admiral, stepping ashore," says Motley, " was wel- 
comed by the magistracy, and a solemn procession was immediately 



formed. Magistrates and citizens, wild Zealanders, emaciated 
burgher guards, sailors, soldiers, women, and children, nearly every 
living person within the walls, all repaired without delay to the 
great church, stout Admiral Boisot leading the way. The starv- 
ing and heroic city, which had been so firm in its resistance to an 
earthly king, now bent itself in humble gratitude to the King of 
kings. After prayers, the whole vast congregation joined in the 
thanksgivhig hymn. Thousands of voices raised the song, but few 
were able to carry it to its conclusion, for the universal emotion, 
deepened by the music, became too full for utterance. The hymn 
was abruptly suspended, while the multitude wept like children." 

" On the day following that on which the relief of the city was 
effected, the wind shifted to the north-east, and again blew a 
tempest. It was as if the waters, having now done their work, had 
been rolled back by an omnipotent hand, for in the course of a few 
days the land was bare again, and the work of reconstructing the 
dykes commenced." 

In commemoration of this memorable struggle, in reward for the 
sacrifices by the heroic city, and to enable the burghers to recruit 
their exhausted energies, William of Orange offered them immu- 
nity from taxation. Leyden patriotically declined the offer, but, 
accepting the proffered honor, still more patriotically requested that 
she might be authorized to establish a university. 

Thus in the midst of tumult and bloodshed, in the hour of the 
country's deepest wo, while storm and clouds hung over the moral 
and political horizon, was born the glorious University of Leyden, 
to become a beacon light to the whole world, casting to the farthest 
limits of civilization its quickening rays. Thus while the Span- 
iard's artillery yet boomed athwart the exquisitely verdant plains 
of Holland ; while the oppressor's sword still crimsoned that bril- 
liant green with the blood of her sons ; long before the widows and 
orphans of those who fell in that frightful siege had begun to 
recover from their agony, — on the 3d of February, 1575, Leyden 
" crowned itself with flowers ; " the peals of martial music mingled 
with the strains of the oboe and the viol, and amid all the pomp of 
that demonstrative age, with processions, orations and banqueting, 
the new university was founded, — was dedicated to the glory of a 
coming nation, and to the service of Him who ordained the laws 
which were there to be investigated, interpreted and disseminated. 



Two hundred and thirty-one years later, on the 4th October, 
1806, three hundred and thirty thousand warriors contended in 
deadly light for a nation's sovereignty, and when the sun went 
down on Jena, the dominion and glory of Prussia had set with it. 
One-half her army had been killed or captured, her cannon swelled 
the conqueror's train, and Napoleon pressed onward to Berlin. The 
rally of the defeated armies was but temporary and nominal. 
Frederick William was driven to the utmost limit of his kingdom, 
and his alliance with Russia only served to postpone for a few 
months the arrival of that fatal day when, after the last roseate hue 
of evening had been blotted out upon the bloody fields of Eylau 
and Friedland, he signed in tearful despair the treaty by which he 
surrendered one-half his kingdom, and submitted to a military oc- 
cupation of the rest by the invading army. Prussia, which within 
a single century had expanded from a petty province into a mighty 
realm, no longer existed save in name. Prussia, which his grand- 
sire had raised to be the equal of Austria and Russia and France 
and England, was but a conquered province. Even his noble, 
generous and lovely queen Louisa, had not shrunk from encounter- 
ing the horrors of war, not even from the most earnest although 
unavailing personal intercession, to obtain less humiliating terms 
for her nation, so lately in the front rank of earthly powers. The 
blow was too hard for her to bear ; and, after lingering for a brief 
period, she sank beneath the weight of her affliction, while yet in 
the flower of her days, leaving a name enshrined in the hearts of 
her subjects. Above her grave at Charlottenburg lies her sculp- 
tured image, the masterpiece of Rauch, and thither still resort both 
the Prussian and the stranger, as to a holy shrine, where all the 
beauty which genius can represent, all the grace of art, the ele- 
gance of taste and the splendor of renewed royal affluence can but 
inadequately represent or commemorate the loveliness of her per 
son and her soul. 

It was at this period, — while an exile from his own capital, while 
the troops of Napoleon still occupied even the region left him east 
of the Elbe, — that the patriotic monarch registered a vow that he 
would yet disenthrall his whole kingdom from the foreign yoke ; 
that Prussia should yet resume her place among the nations. You 
know how well he kept that vow. But how was it that he laid the 
foundations for its fulfillment ? He took counsel, not of the war- 
2 



10 

riors, not of the clergy, not of the statesmen, but of the scholars 
of the land, chief among whom were Fichte Wolff Schleiermacher 
aud Wilhehn von Humboldt, a name needing not the added luster 
even of such a brother's as he could boast. " Exalt Berlin," said 
they all with one voice, " and you shall exalt Prussia." And he 
did exalt Berlin. Within eight weeks after King Frederick Wil- 
liam III., had affixed his signature to the treaty of Tilsit, he set it 
also to an edict requiring the preparation of a plan for a great uni- 
versity at Berlin ; and ordained that so soon as the last Frenchman 
should have emitted the city, the professors should assemble in it, 
and lectures in the university begin. Meanwhile from Ms dis- 
tant asylum at Memel or at Kbnigsberg, he had sanctioned the 
several preliminary steps, and at last under the enlightened super- 
intendence of Wilhehn von Humboldt, who became minister of 
public instruction, the greatest thinkers and profoundest students 
were summoned from all the corners of Germany. 

Thus was planted the University of Berlin, watered with the 
tears, sunned with the hopes, nurtured with the aspirations of a 
people. You know what have been its fruits. Within its walls now 
gather daily more than two thousand students to catch the words of 
wisdom which fall from the lips of two hundred teachers. Nowhere 
since civilization dawned upon the world has such a constellation of 
brilliant minds illuminated the intellectual firmament, as that which 
has concentered in the University of Berlin. I need to name no 
names, — the world knows them. And even here, standing on this 
other continent whither the star of empire is taking its westward 
way, we yet turn our eyes toward those intellectual beams which 
radiate from where their source has risen in the east. Prussia, 
God bless her, has reaped her imperishable reward. Though the 
voices and uplifted swords of her monarch and people availed not 
to delay the setting of her sun at Jena, they have done more than 
Joshua did in Gibeon, for they have hurried on its rising to another 
better, brighter, far more glorious day, and hastened still its 
upward course unto its culmination in effulgent noon. 

These are isolated passages from the history of civilization, — iso- 
lated, yet by no means unparalleled. Did time permit, I might cite 
others like them, or coming to still later years might relate how 
the first act of the same Frederick William III., on receiving his 
Rhenish provinces at the Congress of Vienna, was, in the very 



11 

proclamation issued from that city announcing the re-establishment 
of his realm, to promise them a university ; and how one of his 
earliest deeds was to found the institution which has made classic 
the name of Bonn. 

But the lesson is obvious enough. If the political times are sad 
and the prospect gloomy, so much the more do we need the patriot 
scholar. If true patriotism seems at an ebb, and the foundation- 
principles of our republic to be neglected, so much the louder comes 
the appeal to us to develop the mental resources of a new world. 
And were the clouds once dissipated and the bright bow of faith 
again to seal the promises of the past by the pledges of the pres- 
ent, the future still calls on us for action. There can be no rea- 
sonable doubt that the future of two continents is in a great 
measure to be decided by the acts of the generation now grow- 
ing or grown to man's estate upon the soil of America. Exalt 
America and you exalt a world. Let her but tread that downward 
path which begins by fostering the material and physical to the 
exclusion of the intellectual and moral, — so let the curtain fall, for 
it were better for you and for me that our eyeballs should be seared, 
and our tongues palsied, than that we should see the sight or tell 
the tale. 

The purport of my words to day is this. Shall our zone-and- 
ocean bounded realm, lighted by Southern Cross and Northern 
Crown, shaded by fir and larch and palm and vine, bearing in its 
maternal bosom the hopes, not of a hemisphere, but of a world, — 
whose present is a speck in contrast with its awfully portentous 
future, but which even now contains a population more than five 
times that of Holland, more than double that of the Prussian or the 
Austrian realm, far more than that of all Great Britain ; with a 
richness of resources and a teeming Avealth surpassing that of any 
other empire on this earth, — shall we not take this counsel from the 
days that are gone and follow this omen for the clays that are to 
come ? Shall we Americans never aspire to what suffering Leyden 
craved, what conquered Prussia looked to for regeneration, and 
without which all the clustered glories of the Rhine lacked their 
highest charm ? No, we must have it, and have it soon. No more 
must the long procession of our youth toil through its weary pilgrim- 
age across the Atlantic wave in search of that mental sustenance 
which it has a right to demand at the hands of its fatherland. 



12 

But it may be asked by some, — What means all this clamor for a 
university, when we have already one hundred and twenty-seven 
in the land, and every year is adding to the number ? — when the 
earliest thoughts of our fathers were given to the foundation of 
colleges in the occidental wilderness, when Harvard followed so 
close upon the landing at Plymouth, and the settlement of James- 
town was commemorated by the College of "William and Mary. 
The reply is very simple. It is not of colleges that we are speak- 
ing, it is of a university. And perhaps it may be advisable to 
consider for a moment the difference between the meanings of 
these two words. Or better, if the usage which has grown up in 
America, and by which the two words are often used as synonyms, 
be too deeply rooted to permit the distinction to be at present 
insisted on with advantage, let me define the idea which I desire 
to convey by the word university, and the institution for which I 
plead. Names are not things, although some things are but too 
often names. And the much abused word University has had 
many a hard burden to bear. In one country it has been made to 
denote the whole educational organization of the nation, — in a 
second it is used to designate an aggregation of colleges, whether 
great or small, similar or diverse in their constitution and aims, — 
again it has been employed to signify an academic board which 
confers degrees, — and yet again it is defined as the compound insti- 
tution arising from the juxtaposition of literary, scientific and pro- 
fessional schools. " In this country also," I quote the language of 
President "Walker in his sage inaugural address, " the ambiguity 
has been still further complicated by an accident of history. Our 
oldest colleges in the beginning were nothing but colleges in the 
most limited sense of that term, and therefore were so denominated. 
Some of them, however, when considered in connection with their 
scientific and professional schools have grown into a resemblance 
to the German and Scotch universities, but still prefer to retain 
the old name, while on the other hand colleges of yesterday which 
can hardly yet aspire to be colleges have chosen to begin by hang- 
ing out what I suppose is regarded as the more showy and attrac- 
tive sign of university." 

By College I understand the high educational seminary which, 
if not the most exalted for the students of specialities, is yet the 
highest for the youth who seek that mental discipline, that classic 



13 

culture, that literary refinement which must be drawn from the 
bosom of an Alma Mater, and of which we say u emollit mores nee 
sinit eseferos." I mean that kind of seminary, in the development 
and equipment of which we Americans have a right to glory as 
much as in our common schools, and which at present forms the 
culminating point of our educational system ; which transforms a 
well-taught boy into a cultivated man, and, while in many cases it 
trains and introduces to the world clergymen, lawyers, physicians, 
and of late years engineers and chemists, also secures for the com- 
munity, to the lasting welfare and praise of the State, and honor of 
the good men to whom its foundation may have been due, a refine- 
ment and cultivation among our merchants, bankers, tradesmen, 
farmers, mechanics, unsurpassed and indeed unequaled in any 
region of the world and any epoch of history, if we but make the 
single exception of the Athenian Demos. For, as one of our most 
elegant scholars and most practical men has truly said, " we take 
our degrees in the schools, academies and colleges of the country 
whether we go to them or not. The scholar who speaks to us, the 
lawyer who pleads for us, the lecturer who discourses at the lyceum, 
are all our educators." And thus, as Professor Felton went on to 
show, Shakespeare was educated at second hand by Cambridge, 
Franklin by Oxford, and the eloquent Clay by those colleges 
which had stored the minds of Adams, Calhoun, Webster and his 
other associates and rivals with abundant lore and eloquent culture 
and exact science. 

These are our colleges, — such noble seminaries as Harvard and 
Yale and Brown, as the Colleges of New Jersey and South-Caro- 
lina, the Universities of Virginia and Pennsylvania, such as this 
Alma Mater of good and holy men, Avho shelters us here within 
her protecting arms, and blesses this our gathering in the name of 
religion, and science and letters. This is what I mean by college. 
Wo to our land if they ever lack protection from the state, the 
community or the church ! They have a lofty mission. To them 
are confided interests, demanding all their care and all their ener- 
gies and all their resources. 

By " University " on the other hand, I understand the Univer- 
sitas Litterarum, the navsniGiijnov, — an institution where all the 
sciences in the complete and rounded extent of their complex whole 
are cultivated and taught, where every speciality may find its »vota- 



14 

ries, and may offer all the facilities required by its neophytes. Its 
aim is not so much to make scholars as to develop scholarship, not 
so much to teach the passive learner as to educate investigators, 
and not merely to educate but to spur on. 

It is not solely to diffuse the quickening, life-giving streams of 
truth, but to fill and keep high the foundation whence all the chan- 
nels are supplied. It is not so much for preparing the student to 
be a lawyer or a physician, as for teaching him the fundamental 
principles of law and medicine and imbuing his whole being with 
the deep truths which underlie these principles themselves. Not 
simply to create engineers or surveyors or classical scholars or 
well-informed men, but to make analysts, naturalists, philologists, 
searchers after truth and wisdom. To be to the colleges what the 
normal school is to the high school. To act indirectly with as great 
a power as that with which its direct action is exerted. To teach 
men as well as youths. To make manifest its ennobling and elevat- 
ing action in its reflected influence upon the professors themselves ; 
to be a throbbing intellectual heart, forcing its life-giving streams 
through every artery to the farthest bounds of the body social and 
the body politic. 

In short, we need a hundred colleges in these United States, 
while from the very nature of the case it is impossible that for long, 
long years to come, we should have more than one well-organized 
University. And, if for the sake of condensation and antithesis I 
might presume to clothe my meaning in a somewhat paradoxical 
form, while the usefulness of a College may be measured with con- 
siderable propriety by the number and character of its students, 
that of a University is in the ratio of the number and character of 
its professors. Should there be one struggling student of the most 
barbaric tongue or the most recondite speciality of science, he has 
the same right to ask for a helping hand and intellectual guidance 
there, as though the bent of his talents led him to the most thickly 
trodden path, or the least uncommon aspirations. And at a Uni- 
versity truly deserving of its name he would find a teacher and 
helper in the study of any one of the departments of human 
research, whether in the realm of matter or of mind. 

Surely there can be no confusion as to the boundary line between 
these two distinct institutions. One is designed to answer the 
demands of the community and of the age ; the other to point out 



15 

the paths and lead our country on to a higher, nobler, holier, sub- 
limer eminence than it could otherwise attain, or than would other- 
wise be striven for. 

Centralization is a word and an idea now far from popular. 
But this, like most other principles, has its good as well as evil con- 
sequences. And while we, under democratic and republican 
institutions, feel the full force of the objections to that political cen- 
tralization under which we see so many nations of the old world 
tottering and sinking, we are too apt to overlook the incalculable, 
the unspeakable advantages which flow from the concentrated accu- 
mulation of a whole nation's genius and talent. 

The enthusiastic Parisian knows so well and feels so deeply what 
the centralization of intellect has done for his capital, that he for- 
gets, or willingly loses sight, of the unceasing wo to which political 
centralization has doomed his fatherland. The thought " La 
France, c'est Paris" may well flush the patriotic Frenchman's 
cheek with the glow of honest pride as he recalls the dazzling bril- 
liancy of the assemblages which crowd the halls of the Institute, or 
of the faculties of science and letters which disperse to Paris within 
the circuit of a single league one-fourth of the learning and wisdom 
of the world. There is no substitute for the " encounter of the 
wise." Like that of flint and steel it strikes out without cessation 
the glowing sparks of truth, like that of acid and alkali it forms new, 
unexpected and priceless combinations, like the multiplication of 
rods in the fagot, it gives new strength to all while taking it from 
none. A spiritual stimulus pervades the very atmosphere electri- 
fied by the proximity of congregated genius, its unseen but ever 
active energy, — floating in the air, whispering in the breeze, vibrat- 
ing in the nerves, thrilling the heart, — prompts to new effort and 
loftier aspiration, through every avenue which can give access to 
the soul of man. 

Such centralization is eminently distinguished from political cen- 
tralization, and by this peculiarity among others, that, far from 
being a combination for the sake of acquiring and exercising a 
greater collective power, it acts on the contrary to augment indi- 
vidual influence. While forming a nucleus for scientific, literary, 
artistic energy, it is not a gravitative center toward which every 
thing must converge and accumulate, but is an organic center whose 
highest function is to arouse and animate the circulation of thought 



16 

and mental effort and profound knowledge. It is a nucleus of 
vitality rather than a nucleus of aggregation. As the electric 
battery confers upon every portion of its extended circuit the 
capacity of communing with all the rest, — as the.heart sends out the 
new-formed blood to quicken every member and then to return for 
a new freight of life-giving power, — as the brain diffuses its nervous 
sensibility and its sympathetic faculties to every organ, until the 
full current of vitality pervades the frame and carries life to the 
whole organism, — as the great center of our planetary system ex- 
haustlessly disseminates that wondrous force by which the planets 
and the comets are. impelled in their never-ending rounds, sending 
unceasingly those mystic energies whence they derive all light, heat, 
motion, force and life, yet asking nothing in return but that these 
energies may be distributed, adapted and applied, — as the fountain 
pours out its full invigorating stream, and is again replenished by 
the dews, the mists, the rains, the clouds, which owe their origin to 
this very invigoration, — so will a wise concentration of intellect and 
wisdom promote its own diffusion. An intellectual center for a 
land is a heart, but subject to no induration ; it is a brain, but 
liable to no paralysis, an electric battery which can not be con- 
sumed ; it is a sun without eclipse, a fountain that will know no 
drought. To such a University our colleges would look for succor 
in their need, for counsel in their doubt, for sympathy in their weal 
or wo. There is no one of them but would develop to new 
strength and beauty under its genial emanations, none so highly 
favored or so great that its resources and powers would not expand, 
none too lowly to imbibe the vitalizing, animating influences which 
it would diffuse like perfume. 

It were unnecessary to dwell on the peculiar position of the 
United States in the progress and development of the world's civi- 
lization, and on the transcendent interests committed to our keeping 
for the welfare of centuries to come. Our fathers acknowledged 
the heavy responsibility which can not but accompany our surpass- 
ing privileges. The present age confesses it by that zealous care 
with which it guards and strives to extend the system of popular 
education which our fathers founded and transmitted to us. 

Patriotic citizens are emulating one another in their zeal to con- 
tribute all that is in their power to raise the intellectual and moral 
tone of the community in which they dwell, and they will be thank- 



17 

ful to us if we will guide their liberality. To the least observant 
it is palpable that the present is in a pre-eminent degree what is 
called a transition-period, and not only that we can not remain at 
rest, but that the current of events is sweeping us onward with 
resistless force, and a rapidity both unequaled in the history of 
nations and too great to continue long. Fixity, rest, is at best but 
an abstract idea, without expression either in the material or the 
moral world. Neither in the heavens nor on the earth nor in the 
mind of man, neither in the condition nor the language nor the 
character of nations, is there repose. The very equilibrium both of 
the physical and of the immaterial creation is an equilibrium of 
motion, of oscillating counterpoises, of force wrestling with force. 
But our rushing headway is different from all this; it is something 
abnormal. 

Hardly the screaming steam-horse and the rattling car can typify 
the speed with which the materials and manners and thoughts and 
tendencies of our nation are forming, moving and giving place to 
their successors, — with which our institutions are modifying, our aims 
shifting. Not merely our system of self-government, but a myriad 
of other agencies, more numerous than human ingenuity could 
devise or tongue enumerate, are uniting to swell the breeze 
which fills the unreefed sails and yet more strongly than the tide 
still bears us on. But whither ? Aye whither ! Hopes and fears, 
auguries of good and omens of ill, confusedly mingled, distract and 
perplex us. The landmarks are all unknown and we can not tell 
whether this mighty current, this unceasing and still rising gale are 
bearing us to some unruffled Pacific sea, or hurrying us on to a 
relentless Maelstrom. It is the time for action. Thank God that 
there may still be time to discipline and instruct the crew, and to 
secure the helm ! Men of science and of letters, patriot scholars of 
America, let me adjure you one and all to lay hands to this mighty 
work. Think of it, dream of it, talk of it, write of it, agitate it at 
home and abroad, discuss it in your domestic circles and your places 
of business, offices, counting-houses, reading-rooms, in your social 
gatherings and your public meetings. Let the public mind be 
imbued, permeated, saturated with a sense of the crying need of 
some great American university, some center of thought and study 
and research and culture. Do this — and, believe me, it will come. 
The sooner the better, for we needed it long ago ; and we must 
3 



18 

have it very soon or not at all. Only put your shoulders to the 
wheel and we shall have it now. 

The attention and efforts of good and wise men have already 
been earnestly directed to the attainment of this end or at least of 
some progress in this direction. It was the keen sense of this need 
which led to the establishment of the scientific schools at Cambridge 
and New Haven, — institutions which have already been found 
worthy of imitation in numerous other colleges. It stimulated the 
eminent scholar, who until recently presided over Brown Univer- 
sity, to prepare and urge and carry into effect a complete plan for 
the re-organization of that college, with the intention of making it 
a university in fact as well as in name. It prompted enthusiastic 
hopes in behalf of Columbia College in New York, to struggling 
endeavors in Philadelphia, to earnest and all but successful effort 
in Albany, and the foundation of a National University Association, 
which has already held several meetings in that munificent and 
public-spirited capital. It has enlisted general interest and [stimu- 
lated active exertion in the city of New York, where even now some 
of its advocates are sanguine of ultimate and not remote success. 
Let' us all unite to aid the patriotic and holy cause. The place is 
a secondary question. Be it California, thither our youth and our 
wise men shall flock as to a second Mecca, and the Golden Gate 
be transfigured into a gate of glory. Be it Louisiana, there shall 
its myrtle and its olive find a new use and a nobler significance. 
Be it in the far North-west, the matchless fertility of its soil shall 
be but a feeble type of the new race of its sons. Be it in Virginia, 
or in our own New England, so shall she forever retain the proud 
title of Mother of Great Men. Be it in the Empire State, it shall 
be her noblest, most resplendent crown. 

The state that founds the American university, richly deserves 
to possess it ; and I dare not believe that any of us will see the day 
when there can be a second one. Wherever that university is 
founded will be the heart of the American republic, and the name 
of its founder shall go down to distant ages by the side of that of 
the father of his country. 

It has been a favorite plea in excuse of our national short-com- 
ings, to say that we are as yet very young, not yet expanded to the 
vigor and strength of the old world. Vain, shallow pretext! 
Foolish sophistry ! We are in the fullest vigor of a yet unwasted 



19 

strength, the richest people upon the earth, glorying in our energy, 
our power of endurance, and our feats of arms. It is time that we 
had begun to glory in our moral Avorth, our mental vigor, our intel- 
lectual progress, and the support, championship and furtherance of 
other ideas than physical strength and laden coffers. And the 
signs are not unpropitious. Indeed we may already glory that the 
whole republic has been found ready to respond to the appeals of 
an Agassiz, — that even the packet-ships of the land have hastened 
to offer the welcome of their hospitality to European scientists who 
desire to attend the annual gathering of our American Scientific 
Association. Heaven be praised that we may already glory in the 
possession of high-minded men whose public spirit and liberal mu- 
nificence have become proverbial wherever patriotism is honored 
and generosity applauded ! Heaven be praised that we may claim 
as our fellow-citizens the Coopers, Astors, Dudleys and Law- 
rences ! Our thoughtful and gifted Lieber has given their deeds a 
fitting name. " To call such gifts princely, or even imperial, libe- 
rality," he says, " were simply using a sinking figure of speech. 
Princes never bestow such gifts of that which is their own. May 
we not call it ' American republican munificence f ' No Adrian 
disburses this sum from a treasury filled Avith the tribute of ach- 
ing provinces ; no Napoleon lavishes it from the collection of severe 
taxes ; no Guy bequeaths it to soothe the smarting memory of 
disreputable traffic ; no testator distributes Avhat he could not 
take with him; but a simple citizen and kindly lover of his 
species gives Avhat he has earned by active and by honest trade, in 
the full vigor of a life that has ahvays been garnished with deeds 
of charity and public spirit. An act like this is an event and 
belongs to history, otherAvise it might be indelicate to state that the 
mentioned sum is not the tithe, but the third or fourth part of the 
wealth which the generous donor's own industry has accumulated 
with the blessing of Providence." 

To a nation which has raised up such men as these, it is impos- 
sible that our appeal should be made in vain. These public- 
spirited men too haA T e a right to expect of us some indication as to 
Avhat and where are our most crying intellectual Avants ; and even 
did they not expect it, Ave have a right to urge our appeals and 
volunteer counsel in the name of that fatherland for whose present 
progress Ave Avould plead, and in behalf of whose eternal destiny we 
Avould implore. 



20 

But it is scarcely to be anticipated that so large a sum as would 
be demanded for the foundation of a University upon a scale worthy 
of this people and commensurate with the demands of the age can 
be derived from private generosity, even though several individu- 
als of exceeding wealth should unite in the exercise of American 
republican munificence. The yearly outlay would far exceed the 
whole endowment of an ordinary college. For such sums as these 
it has always been necessary to appeal to a state or nation. There 
are great disadvantages connected with such a course here, it is 
true, the most prominent of these, under our form of government, 
being the danger of intermeddling by unskilled and incautious leg- 
islators. Yet it seems far from impossible to guard against this 
peril, great as it is, — and to arrange a judicious system of checks 
and balances, by which the evils of hasty and impulsive legislation 
may be averted, without impairing the capabilities for progressive 
expansion and adaptation. It were certainly vain to imagine that 
any handiwork of human skill can spring into being, like Pallas, in ' 
the full maturity of perfection. No organism was ever manufac- 
tured. It must grow. The element of time must enter into its 
development. As a garment fresh from the artisan must gradually 
adapt itself to the form which it is to clothe, so must every national 
institution grow into its conformity and harmony with the manners, 
the tone, the tendency of the people. And thus the danger of a 
dependence upon the body politic appears manifestly far less to be 
apprehended than the opposite peril of an unrenewed governing 
board, permanent and filling its own vacancies. For however 
decided may be the advantages which spring from unity of counsel, 
however trustworthy and enlightened may be the individual mem- 
bers personally, still the principle of power without immediate 
responsibility is too much at variance with the whole tenor of 
American republicanism, to escape distrust and animadversion, 
more harmful than even divided counsels or a fluctuating policy. 
It were manifestly out of place to enter here upon illustrations of 
my meaning. They will occur to you all. Perhaps there is no 
principle of social philosophy more generally conceded by our 
statesmen and scholars, than that which warns against an institu- 
tional oligarchy, not open to influences from without, severed from 
dependence upon the community which surrounds it and in behalf 
of whose interests it is to act. The era of such organizations was 



21 

that of prospective and exclusive monopolies, and of territorial 
entails. They are characteristic of a by-gone age, though of an 
age whose consequences may still be found here and there in the 
form of chartered prerogatives and traditional abuses. That these 
are altogether without power for good no one can doubt, — and it 
were easy to exemplify this also by citing exceptional cases, close 
at hand, in which a very small oligarchy is endowed with large 
privileges, most conscientiously exerted. Yet here it is the pecul- 
iarity and conspicuousness of the exception which illustrates the 
existence of the rule. Upon this topic there is room for large dis- 
course ; but it belongs to the detailed rather than to the general 
consideration of our subject, and I pass on with a single remark. 

More than one carefully organized educational institute has 
failed of full success in our land in consequence of a grievous and 
eminently injurious theoretical error on the part of its founder ; 
an error, too, not unnatural for those, all whose experience and 
views of life are taken from the so-called practical, that is the empiri- 
cal side. If an institution, they say, be in conformity with the wants 
of the age and of the people, it will, when once established and 
fairly launched into the stream of action, prove self sustaining and be 
capable of constantly replenishing its own resources. A failure to 
do this would, they maintain, furnish all the demonstration requisite 
for showing that the institution, in that form at least, was not needed. 
A grievous, an injurious error, did I say ? There are in this as- 
sumption two fearful, deadly mistakes, — practical errors as well as 
philosophical fallacies. -Is there one of our colleges that is self- 
sustaining ? Shall we apply the doctrines of trade and barter to 
human souls ? Are we to reason about mind and thought and 
culture and research, as we do about bales of cotton and chests of 
indigo ? No, that is indeed a dire mistake. And a yet greater one 
is the pernicious idea that the design of a school or an athenaeum 
or a library or a college or a university is to keep pace with the 
times and with the public mind, — in short, that it should follow 
rather than lead. To adopt such a doctrine were to debar our- 
selves from progress. What ! education dragged dangling at the 
heels of the age, struggling to keep up with the march of civiliza- 
tion ? What ! the teacher leaving his proud vocation, to throw out 
bait for pupils who may bring a few more dollars to the treasury, or 
a few more human beings to the lecture-room ? No. We want no 



22 

university keeping up with the times and commending itself to the 
public approval. We want one which shall be just as far ahead 
of the age as is consistent with being within hail, — which shall 
enlarge and expand the mind and taste and appreciation of the 
public, compelling the admiration of that public, not soliciting its 
approval. We want a university which instead of complying with 
the demands of the age, shall create, develop, and satisfy new and 
unheard-of requisitions and aspirations, — which so far from adapting 
itself to the community shall mould that community unto itself, and 
which through every change and every progress shall still be far 
in advance of the body social, guiding it, leading it, urging it, 
drawing it, pulling it, hauling it onward. An institution not 
needed if it is not self-sustaining ! Have the greatest men of ages 
past been sustained by the community, — the Homers, Kepplers, 
Miltons ? Brethren, is the sun needed in the heavens ? or shall 
we deny this also, because it is not sustained by the planets which 
it illumes and vivifies ? 

There is, however, one sense in which a university ought to be 
self-sustaining. As the sun, though not upheld by its planets, is 
still an essential member of the Kosmos, and is itself bound by the 
same laws as they, although primary to a more exalted system, so 
must a university be self-sustaining, not materially or pecuniarily 
in a direct temporal sense, but mentally and morally. It must 
command the veneration and devotion of the nation, creating in the 
republic a reverence for truths, and principles, and learning, and 
science, and research; an intimate acquaintance with the laws 
which regulate the universe, and whose detection reveals to us the 
counsels of the great First Thought and the eternal decrees by which 
He manifests himself, — decrees recorded in the answer to every 
question that may be devised by the fertile thought of the being 
molded in the image of his Maker. Commanding this respect, 
enlisting this homage, receiving this fealty, it will and must be self- 
sustaining like every other university that ever existed. 

University. It is a word in the history of man, like Church, 
State, School. It is at the same time one of the great phenomena 
and one of the great levers of civilization. Under some form or 
other it dates back to the very dawn of letters, art, culture, refine- 
ment. It has existed, without a chartered name or tangible organ- 
ization, wherever wise and thoughtful men of diverse attainments 



23 

have been numerously assembled, raising the tone of thought in a 
state and acting on each other, as on society at large. 

Ancient Greece, the parent of our modern civilization, may boast 
the first University. For, however incomplete and immature, it 
was an infant university, — that concourse of gifted men which 
crowned immortal Athens with her undying glory, when half a 
century after the foundation of the first recorded library, the lofty 
aspirations of Pericles and his countrymen found expression in 
those transcendent works of art, which. confirmed, even while illus- 
trating, the refinement and genius of the state, and have secured 
throughout succeeding ages to a city numbering scarcely more than 
a hundred thousand inhabitants, and only twenty. thousand voters, 
the titles of nurse of arts, fountain of science, center of culture, 
home of philosophy and studious thought. The intellect of a world 
thronged her streets, the unrivaled grandeur of her Acropolis but 
typified the elegance of the popular taste, while in its crowning 
monument, 

" Earth proudly hails the Parthenon 
As the best gem upon her zone." 

A gem too, not dedicated to the protecting power of Zeus, not to 
the loveliness of Aphrodite, not to the valor of Ares, not to the all- 
embracing dominion of Poseidon. No, it was another divinity 
than these who received the highest tribute of " Cecropias pillared 
state," who gave its olive and its name ; and the full treasury of the 
triumphant republic poured out its wealth in unstinted profusion to 
rear the proud temple and the colossal statue to Pallas Athene. 

" Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts 
And eloquence, native to famous wits 
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, 
City or suburban, studious walks and shades ; 
See there the olive grove of Academe, 
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird 
Trills her thick warbled notes the summer long ; 
There flowery hill Hymettus, with the sound 
Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites 
To studious musing ; there Ilissus rolls 
His whispering stream ; within the wall then view 
The schools of ancient sages." 

This was a magnificent university ; and here began that long 



24 

line of great men .which, under the exalting influence of Athenian 
culture, gave the world a list of names yet equaled by no realm, or 
age, or race. The shady groves and grassy lawns were conse- 
crated by the teachings of great men to whom we even now refer 
for instruction and ennobling thought; the theater of Dionysos 
beat to the rhythm of JEschylus and Sophocles, Euripides and Aris- 
tophanes. Here were the wise statesmen; here the impassioned, 
silver-tongued, and all-persuading orators ; here were the fathers 
both of physical and ethical science; and here the authors and 
artists who gave language and molded taste and style for coming 
ages and nations. In Athens and Athens only in all history, 
could have been uttered that proudest of boasts, that loftiest of 
panegyrics : — 

"Toaovrov d' anoVsXoinev r\ ndlig ^ucbv . tteqI to (pqoveZv xal Xiyeiv 
xovg allovg txv-d-g&novg, &a& ol ratiTijg [xa&rjjal rav aXXmf dl86.oy.aXoi 
ysvovaai, xal to rav 'Ellrivwv ovofia 7tS7to[j]xe firjxirv rov yivovg ullu 
trig diapoiag doxsTv slvai, xal [laXkov "Elhpag xaksia&av rovg Trjg 
7iai8s6o~8wg %r\g r^sxiqag, tj rovg rr\g xoivrig cpticrewg fiSTB%0PTag. ,> 

" So much indeed has our own city, surpassed all the rest of 
mankind in thought and language, that those who here are pupils 
are teachers elsewhere, and that she has made the name of Gre- 
cians seem no more to denote the race alone, but the intellectual 
attainments, and those to be called Grecians who partake of our 
culture, rather than those who share our common nature." 

Even three centuries later, Athens was still a Universal school, 
and frequented as such by the youth of Rome, in her palmiest days, 
for the improvement of their minds and education of their taste. 
There Cicero and Virgil, Horace and Lucretius studied, and thence 
they brought that grace and learning and thought with which they 
adorned their native tongue. 

So, too, were Alexandria and Pergamos, so were Tarsus and 
Berytus, partial universities, by virtue of their libraries and of the 
learned men whom these libraries attracted, — universities and direct 
offshoots from the Athenian stem. But the legitimate successor of 
Athens was Constantinople, which in the fourth century of our era 
became the center of art and letters. Science hardly existed at 
the time, and what little there was had found a temporary refuge 
among the Egyptians and Arabians. But art and letters fled to 
the Byzantine capital, lingering there so long as it could afford a 



25 

shelter, and leaving indeed their traces even down to the present 
day in the Greek schools which still continue under the protection 
of the Patriarch of Constantinople. 

The atrocities of the Crusaders, — those foes of culture and learn- 
ing more ruthless than the Saracens, more unsparing than the 
Ottomans, more desolating than the Huns or Vandals, — combined 
with the barbarism of all the rest to destroy the monuments of 
ancient art and the masterpieces both of the earlier and later clas- 
sics. An exodus of scholars from Constantinople, which had com- 
menced before the sack and pillage by Mohammed II., was 
rendered complete by that fearful catastrophe. The word univer- 
sity, in its signification of place of instruction in universal learning, 
had already come into us. Like an exploding rocket sprinkling on 
every side its spray of golden sparks, so did Byzantium in its 
destruction send out its scholars to scatter the seeds of Hellenic 
science and culture in directions the most diverse. These were the 
men who originated and established the universities of Italy and 
France and Spain, and the precursors of the universities of Ger- 
many. Platonic academies were founded, in places the most 
remote, by fugitive Greeks, who introduced into European learning 
the element of criticism, an element unknown in Asian science. 
This rekindling of letters by the renewed study of Grecian litera- 
ture was the harbinger of a new era, and the dissemination of such 
scholarship as had remained in Constantinople led to a rich and 
copious harvest. It was this regeneration of intellectual activity 
that rolled back the dark curtain of ignorance, superstition and 
barbarism which has given a name to those ages, and it pre- 
pared the way for that form and measure of civilization which we 
now enjoy, — a civilization founded upon popular education under 
the immediate guidance, direct or indirect, of institutions of higher 
learning. 

The discovery of the Pandects doubtless aided the progress of 
this revival of letters, by the stimulus which it gave to the study of 
the law ; for an incentive to advancement in any one department 
of research is always an impulse to all the rest. The universities 
of Bologna and Cordova, of Lyons and Paris, had already been 
founded, as also had the monastic institutions which formed the 
germ of the present seminaries of Cambridge and Oxford. These 
were now followed by universities at Naples, Padua, Vienna, Pisa, 
4 



26 

Perugia, Valladolid, and elsewhere ; but especially by the Platonic 
Academy of Florence, which became the focus of culture, taste 
and thought, constituting in fact a splendid university which led the 
way for many of the weightiest discoveries of modern science, and 
still secures to beautiful Florence her pre-eminence as the home of 
art. For letters and research, science and art, may not be divorced 
by the hand of man. Speech, thought, emotion, are connected by 
indissoluble ties. 

I will not attempt to follow up the history of universities. Suf- 
fice it to repeat that where the great and gifted are gathered 
together in numbers, there is the germ of a university, — competent 
even as a germ to enlighten and to spiritualize, no matter whether 
it publish programmes and confer degrees, or not. In the brilliant 
days of Louis XIV., the Parisian University was not merely within 
the walls of the College Louis le Grand, or of the Sorbonne. Its 
spirit was in every public gathering, it pervaded the air, it radiated 
even from the dissolute court, and amid the profligacy of those de- 
generate days it held up the segis of mental culture, shielding from 
many a moral taint and sheltering the state from wounds which 
would otherwise have hurried it to a Babylonian fall. And I 
assert that wherever and whenever in history we find a state or a 
city conspicuous for an ennobling influence upon its age race or 
nation, we shall find this influence to emanate directly or indirectly 
from a university. 

I had designed devoting some little time to an account of the Italian, 
Spanish and early French universities, tracing the gradual modifi- 
cations of their respective organizations, and finally entering upon 
some account and discussion of the great universities of modern 
Germany. But this would demand a disproportionate share of 
your time, and more than I should be warranted in consuming ; 
and since the questions which they would suggest pertain chiefly 
to matters of detail rather than to general principles, I will not 
hesitate to pass them by. 

Cambridge and Oxford too, the chief universities of England, 
have exercised an eminent influence upon the national character, 
although their benefits have probably been due rather to the cir- 
cumstance, that these two cities have formed the nucleus around 
which has crystallized the whole scholastic culture of the realm, 
than to any especial excellence or completeness in the constitution 



27 

of the seminaries. For both of these institutions, although now 
known by the name of universities, were originally a simple aggre- 
gation of monasteries, founded for religious more than educational 
purposes. At present all these monasteries have become colleges ; 
but, in spite of their enormous wealth and of the abundant learning 
which has clustered and still congregates around their venerable 
and honored walls, their cultural development has not been of that 
wide range which characterizes a university proper, but has been 
restricted chiefly to exegetical philology, theology and ethics, with 
the addition at Cambridge of the mathematics. So striking has 
been the want of symmetry in the growth of their range of study, 
that even now, the word " scholarship " is there employed to denote 
solely proficiency in philological attainments, or rather a knowledge 
of a limited number of the Greek and Latin classics, to the exclu- 
sion of all the exact and natural sciences ; while " natural philoso- 
phy " is still used, as it formerly was with ourselves, to designate 
all the departments of physics combined. 

Let us now recall the memory of some of these universities, — 
reverend and hallowed in the history of the mental progress of our 
race, — and let us admit to our hearts the associations with which 
their names come freighted. 

Let us think of Bologna, Cordova, Padua, Salamanca ; of Hei- 
delberg, Prague, Pavia, Sienna and Coimbra ; of Cambridge, 
Oxford, Wurzburg, Leipsic, Basel ; of Wittenberg, Seville, Kunigs- 
berg, Jena, Pisa, Leyden, Bamberg ; of Halle, Gottingen, Upsala, 
Munich, Berlin. Let us recall these and others like them, and 
then inquire whether all this fair series is now to be at an end, 
because the physical energies of the world have begun to traverse 
the Atlantic gulf. Shall all the classic names be trans- Atlantic, 
and no American soil be sacred in the annals of mental progress ? 
Shall there be no new Athens upon this wide-spread continent, 
where science and art, ancient lore and modern inquiry, may gather 
together and be blessed under the protection of a nation's wings or 
folded to a nation's heart? Shall our American youth still be 
driven to make their weary pilgrimage across the sea, even as the 
children of luxurious, effeminate, ignorant Rome were wont to 
seek the groves of crumbling Athens, there to gather the remnants 
of that mental food which Hellas had given to her children, but 
Rome refused to her own. Brethren, if you omit the university 



28 

from the scheme of the commonwealth, you will cripple civilization, 
you will mar the noblest development of humanity. And yet how 
stands the case with us at present. Although we have our twenty- 
seven millions of souls, although we have everywhere our common 
schools, though we have established our high-schools, and founded 
our colleges, — yet when the earnest youth, whose lips you have 
moistened with a few drops of the quickening draught, rushes to 
seek the full tide of learning, asking to drink from the fountain- 
head, and bathe his soul in the refreshing current, you show him the 
flood-gates closed. He hears only the distant murmuring of the 
wasted stream which ever torments and never may slake his thirst, 
and whose rippling voice is more torturing than is the sparkling 
nectar at the lip of Tantalus. 

I claim that the same arguments, which demand of a state that 
it educate its children, require in like manner and with equal force 
that all be furnished with full opportunity for developing their in- 
tellectual powers, and that abundant provision be made for the 
special education of those whose general education has been already 
provided for. And if it be a high duty to supply colleges which 
shall help to change the well-trained boy into the cultivated man, 
how can it fail to be a duty also to enable the cultivated man to 
become the scholar, the investigator, the teacher, the helper, the 
ennobler of his race and country ? 

But there is a far higher ground than mere precedent, on which 
the university must be advocated and established. Did history 
furnish no examples for our study, admiration and emulation, still 
the call on us to establish a university would hardly be less imper- 
ative than now. That men are born with faculties for progress, 
with inward promptings to investigation accompanied by the capac- 
ity to conduct it, is a sufficient indication that the Creator and 
Supreme Disposer meant these powers to be cultivated. And the 
experience of all humanity teaches, that His providence is so exerted 
as to reward intellectual triumphs by temporal blessings, conferred 
if not upon the individual at least upon the race. We know that 
strong taste, impulses aiad capacities for searching out the secrets 
of nature, developing the beauties of art, discovering the laws of 
existence and of thought, are sparsely and diversely conferred. 
And since without the support and aid of society these lofty im- 
pulses can not be gratified, the conclusion is inevitable that it is a 



29 

duty of the state to promote the culture of special mental powers as 
well as the education of general capacity, and thus to insure for the 
benefit of the commonwealth the maximum spiritual activity of its 
citizens. I will not attempt to follow, expand or illustrate the ar- 
gument. To you its pursuit, expansion, illustration, are in no wise 
necessary. Indeed an excuse is needed for the allusion to what is 
so self-evident and palpable. Would that the apology were not at 
hand ! But till our own America may boast a university where all 
her sons, whatever their peculiar bent or taste, may find an oppor- 
tunity to gain new light and larger knowledge, we must dwell on 
this, were it the tritest of themes, and lay stress on it, were it the 
most elementary of axioms. Let us hope and trust that before the 
revolving year shall again have called you together to celebrate 
this festival, no man may be able to deny that America provides 
food for her children. 

The mode of organization is a secondary question, no matter 
how great may be its intrinsic importance. There are those who 
strenuously advocate the German plan and would retain all the 
little peculiarities of detail, riveted on by history, and which none 
would so gladly discard as the Germans themselves. There are 
those who advocate an ideal structure, planned with skill and reared 
with judgment, to overtop and eclipse all its predecessors. Nor 
are those wanting who in the zeal of their scholastic sympathies 
would summon again the ancient usages of Bologna, or the consti- 
tution under which Salamanca won her classic name. All these 
are questions of detail, and their answer is at present unimportant 
in comparison with the great problem before us, which is to found 
a university somewhere and somehow. I will not enter into par- 
ticulars, but may be permitted to express my abiding faith that, 
with the blessing of Providence, neither the strict discipline of 
Oxford, nor the unfettered freedom of Padua, nor the profound 
abstraction of Salerno, — neither the predominance of the exact 
sciences which appears at one, nor the overweight of antiquated 
and mouldy speculation manifested at another, nor the prepondera- 
ting influence of manner over matter, form over substance, as at a 
third, — is to be feared. Spread out before us is the history of a 
hundred nations, whence we may learn merits, dangers, safeguards, 
and cull the beauties and the sweets. A wise exercise of this priv- 
ilege is earnestly -to be desired ; still under any system there will be 



30 

a living force, a vital, shaping energy, which will soon mold every- 
thing to such conformation with the other institutions, the manners, 
the habits of the age, as is needed for establishing the mutual rela- 
tions through which all the blessings are to flow. In other lands 
and times this adaptation has been the work of a " historic devel- 
opment." But in our land it will follow in like manner in immeas- 
urably shorter time, from the increased vigor of all the influences 
which act upon the body social and politic ; and, chief of all, from 
the great fact that it concerns no privileged class, but the whole 
people, among which and for which and by which it is to exist. 

No matter what the initial form, how great the advantages or 
the harm, — these are but for a couple of decades of years at the 
farthest. The university will contain a soul, a restless, striving, 
throbbing, impelling, shaping, creative vitality; and will become, 
not an Italian, nor a French, nor an English, nor a Spanish, nor a 
German, but pre-eminently an American university, — glowing with 
American fire, pulsating with American aspirations, and, strange 
as the words may sound to us to-day, radiating with what will then 
be American scholarship, American depth of thought, American 
thoroughness of research, American loftiness of generalization. 
For so surely as effect follows cause will all these follow in the 
train. . It will bring the refining power of ancient lore and classic 
elegance to balance and counteract the all-pervading tendency to 
mere material science ; it will leaven the tone of thought through- 
out the world, by introducing the precision of exact science where 
the vagueness and confusion of the schoolmen has long reigned ; it 
will lift the philosophical and philological sciences to a far higher 
scope and standard as specialities, while it unfetters the struggling 
mind from the incubus of an antiquity which recognizes no pro- 
gress, a conservatism which excludes all things which are or ever 
have been new. It will liberalize classic education, and yet be an 
unsparing foe to stagnation. For I assure you that there never 
existed a university which surrendered either to conservatism or to 
radicalism. Never an university which was not eminently nation- 
alizing in its tendency ; never one where influence was not toward 
a more thorough understanding of things foreign. Under the 
most absolute despotisms, the universities have been nurseries of 
political liberty ; under the most intolerant of creeds, they have fos- 
tered freedom of thought. In the midst of license they have pre- 



31 

served the public morals, and in all times and places they, have 
kept down that evil of our own days so- well described as "intel- 
lectual anarchy." 

Scarcely had the new-born second Greece escaped from Moham- 
medan thralldom and cast aside the tokens of her subjugation, when 
she hastened to confirm her independence, not simply by political 
organization and all the circumstance of legislation and of embas- 
sies, but by founding her university, — a university before there were 
any pupils. A score of years has not yet elapsed, but there are 
pupils now, who, attending the instruction which the state vouch- 
safes to all without price, are creating a Hellenic nationality. And 
now, in Athens, — where but yesterday exploded the Turkish shell 
and boomed the hostile cannon whose lingering echoes have yet 
scarcely died away from the reverberating marble cliffs of Parnes, 
Pentelicus, and Hymettus, — more than forty native professors are 
discoursing to nearly seven hundred native students, children of the 
foreign merchant, the Turkish slave, of the Klephtic robber. 

This is the youngest of the race, the last of that long series which 
began where it has ended, where now, — beside the murmurs of Ilissus 
and Cephissus, amid the fragrant gales which breathe from Hymettus 
and Cithseron, within those very groves where Plato walked, close 
to those glory-crested heights which have resounded to the accents 
of Demosthenes and Pericles, yes, within the very shadow of the 
Parthenon, — has arisen again the temple of Learning and the offer- 
ings are again heaped upon her new-built shrine. The European 
cycle is complete. Let us pray that the American cycle may 
begin. 

Mr. President and Brethren, my task is done. The opportunity 
which your kindness has vouchsafed me, to commend to your 
hearts the furtherance of the great work, was a privilege not to be 
slighted. Let us strive with all our powers, until that work shall 
have been accomplished, feeling that every effort, which by one jot 
or tittle advances the noble consummation, gives us a title to the 
gratitude of ages yet unborn, and to the consciousness that we too 
may be recorded de patria bene meriti. Found the American 
university, and throngs of European youth shall crowd its halls, 
carrying back with them American ideas to ennoble their own 
lands, bringing hither with them counterpoises of trans-Atlantic 
thought that shall ennoble ours, and both by their coming and 



32 

their going, cementing the family of nations in bonds of mutual 
sympathy and attachment. Found it, though it cost the whole 
revenues of a capital. Let earth, air and sea bring their tribute ; 
let California and India pour in their gold, and the busy marts of 
men their gains, till this great work is done. Thus shall we 
achieve the glory of a nation, the welfare of a continent, the ad- 
vancement of a race, and crown the clustering hopes of humanity 
with more than full fruition. 



